Powerful San Francisco union gives two endorsements for mayor

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The highly anticipated endorsements of San Francisco’s largest union are out, and like others, SEIU 1021 appears torn when it comes to endorsing a new mayor among a crowded field.

“The delegates were in support of both Supervisor John Avalos and State Senator Leland Yee, both progressives with strong labor credentials and records, both having been in SEIU at one time, and both friends,” the union sent out in a press release.

The “dual endorsement” came as the union figured that neither Yee nor Avalos could win without sharing from the same pool of progressive voters. The third place slot went to Bevan Dufty.

That’s bad news for Dennis Herrera and David Chiu, two front running candidates who had been seeking the SEIU endorsement. Both were no-shows at a rally in June over one of the only controversial aspects of this year’s budget deliberations, the privatization of hospital security. There was no mention of current Mayor Ed Lee in SEIU's release.

As for district attorney, incumbent George Gascón gets snubbed and the union picked David Onek, Bill Fazio and Sharmin Bock, in that order.

And in a sheriff’s race that has gotten more and more interesting, only one candidate exists to SEIU: Ross Mirkarimi.

Also of note, SEIU had grumbled about some provisions of the pension reform measure put together by Mayor Ed Lee and the “city family,” but in the end the union came through to endorse that measure and will be fighting Jeff Adachi’s measure.